Tag Archives: wellness

Every winter I do a writing series where I open up my blog to other writers to explore a theme. This year I asked my Haven alums to consider submitting a piece about what it took to get themselves to the retreat, what their blocks were, and how it has informed future decision making when it comes to creating possibilities for themselves in the field of their dreams.

My little suitcase yawned on the floor waiting to accept my dirty laundry. I filled it, purposefully folding and placing each soiled garment, hoping that someone would knock on my door and say, “You don’t have to go! You can stay . . . possibly forever!” Despite my dawdling, this did not happen and I was borne away from Haven, my haven, in the white rental car of a former stranger who is now one of my tribe.

At Sea-Tac my patient and loving husband pulled up in our silver sport utility. I threw my little suitcase into the back and jumped into the passenger seat. He looked at me like someone peeking into a musty box from the attic – is there a big hairy spider in there? Will it jump on my face?

I blurted, “We need to spend more time in Montana. In fact, months at a time. I heard God. I found people who are like me. It was simply transformative. It was the best experience of my life, well, except for when we got married and had the kids” I added lamely. He stared but the corners of his eyes crinkled and his mouth twitched up into a smile.

“Ok,” he played along, “I can work from Montana. Can we still spend some time in Seattle so I can get into the office now and again?” He was clearly prepared to humor me for a bit. “How was it, really? Transformative is, well, a lot.”

But it was. It was transformative. Despite Laura’s admonishments to the contrary, I was ready to sell our house, move to Montana and live in a yurt with nothing but a desk, lamp, pen and paper. I was ready to become, let me state this as humbly as possible, a great writer. Not just good – epically magnificent. I had complete confidence in my competence. I commenced to prepare to write. I set up my writing room with my writing desk with my writing lamp, my writing pens, and writing notebooks. I ordered books on writing and organized a bookshelf for them. Once the books arrived, I began feverishly reading them, carrying them around like sacred texts. Interestingly, I did not put pen to paper and write. I thought a lot about it, read a lot about it, but did not do it.

The afterglow lasted for a long time. Right up to the point where I became utterly dismayed and desolated at my narcissistic depravity. Who would want to read anything that I wrote? I’ll tell you. Nobody. Why? I had nothing moving, inspirational, transcendent or even vaguely interesting to say. Nothing. Not only did I have nothing vaguely interesting to say, I couldn’t put it down on paper anyway. No skills. None at all. So, there you had it. I avoided my writing room with all of its’ writing accoutrements. I regretted the money I had wasted on my silly escapade. I was embarrassed that I had made an ass of myself in front of Laura and my Haven tribe by making them read and listen to my schlock. I almost wore sack cloth and ate ashes but I realized that might have been too much.

In the middle of this self-flagellating nighttime, creeping tendrils of an idea came to me like a clematis climbing a trellis to get closer to the sun. Hubris and desolation – opposite points on a spectrum, right? I had occupied both ends rather painfully for myself and for those around me. What was in the middle? Eventually I settled into travelling a wide place between the two ends where I am practicing being compassionately myself. Having dreams, daytime or otherwise, witnessing truths in the world and witnessing truths in me. Sometimes just making-believe. And writing all that down. For my own enjoyment. Or, just because I have to. Or, want to. Because it’s fun and it’s for me. It’s a practice I get to do, I get to make it a way of life, a vocation, a calling. It’s what I do and now, thanks to Laura and Haven, I can claim it without reservation. It is me. I am a Writer.

I Gave Myself the Gift of a Haven Retreat, Now What?by Sharley Bryce

I gave myself the gift of a Haven Retreat. Now what? In the fields of Montana, where the grasses blow softly and the dust settles on the tops of my riding boots, peace abounds. Whether I come there with a troubled heart or a full one, the experience brings me in touch with my true self. There simply is no denying it; and, the “now what?” is: “what a I going to do with me?” Somewhere there are footprints I left, in doubt, and many in faith and love. They are a part of me now. Like the “Now What?” poster of the baby chick hatched out of the egg. I am overwhelmed by all the possibilities for me now. Having touched the hearts and souls of others at the retreat, sharing and caring, it would be, quite simply, a waste to leave that experience behind and not put it to good use for my own future. Inspiration felt or learned must find its place in me and take flight onto the page.

Too late in life we regret things we didn’t do more than things we did do. We think life is what happens to us, but isn’t it also the other way around; we make our life happen out of all the opportunities we encounter and give to ourselves. The hard part is giving ourselves permission to use those opportunities for our own growth and development. It would be so nice to continue to stay at Haven and write as I am moved to do there, in the beauty of Montana, with all the time in the world, in a safe haven. To be true to myself, I must be willing to make time in my individual life. If I am the instrument through which my words are played and my gift of writing is shared, then I must give myself permission to take the time for writing no matter what. Thoughts and ideas can come in the shower, in the dark of night, or driving the car. I am scrambling to get them down on snippets of paper in my purse or running from the bathroom to the kitchen lest the magical words that sweep me away from the mundane to the real are gone. These same magical words on the page hold me in great anticipation of a finished work. I am moving forward from where I once was to where I am now and that is my truth. I dare not ask how far I have come since Haven because I am still pushing through my fear of being adequate enough to choose just the perfect words for the page. It doesn’t matter so much to me who reads these words as it matters that they are written. That is what I am doing with me now.

Often after I have been with a friend and seen their face light up, I have pictured them alone, serious and still. It reminds me that we all are alone and serious and still at times but we can put those times to good use. Haven is a gift I took with me. From time to time I unwrap it to see again what is inside and enjoy its mysteries. There is great freedom in that.

Sitting at a player piano pushing on the pedals and letting the music of those wonderful paper rolls sweep me away was the happiest of past times for me as a teenager. I thought I was a movie star somewhere in a life of fun and romance. It was one of the most comforting and cleansing of my soul things I could do during those years of searching for my true identity. Of course I didn’t compose those songs, yet they were favorites and still have the same effect on me today. Today, writing allows me to go to a place of peace and joy with my own words and “music” and be fully present. It beckons and I picture the sharing of it which I find exciting. The challenge is to move things around and give it a high priority in my life. Perhaps the real answer to “now what?” is figuring out how to doge and fake in the face of all the things that get in the way of writing. Many things are going to happen and, when they do, we say “now what?” as if we expect it and as if it is just one more thing on top of a lot of things. I am going to make it the important thing for me and let the rest happen as it will.

Well, it’s time for the annual Haven Winter Writing Series again, and this year we have a theme that I hope will inspire you to do something you’ve been wanting to do for a long time, but haven’t quite had the guts or permission or stamina or time or money or support or inspiration or did I say guts, to give yourself. I know all about it. Every time I start a book, never mind an essay or a magazine article, or heck, even this blog post, my inner critic puts on boxing gloves and starts to swing: “Who do you think you are?” “You’re not good enough to pull this off.” “No one asked you to do this.” “People will judge you.” “This is what OTHER people do, not you.” “Go on Facebook and see what the COOL people are up to. You belong at the other table- the one with the theater geeks and the people who missed the memo on hygiene maintenance.” “Have you looked at yourself lately? You need to join the gym!” (not sure what that last one has to do with writing, but somehow it always sneaks its way in…) But for some reason, I keep writing things. Always have. Call it an obsession. Call it an addiction. Call it just plain stupid. I’ve just learned not to listen. I’ve learned to put that chatter in a box that is not quite cast off to sea, but nowhere close to my writing desk. I hope that someday I will once and for all give it a proper water burial. One step at a time.

You can bet that voice was loud when I started leading writing retreats– all of that mean inner chatter about supposed-to-be and not-enough. Well for some reason I did it anyway. And now over 300 people have come to Haven and have had major breakthroughs in finding their unique voice through the transformative power of writing. AND Haven was ranked in the top five writing retreats in the US! You do not have to be a writer to come to Haven. Just a seeker.

This year I asked my Haven alums to consider submitting a piece about what it took to get themselves to the retreat, what their blocks were, and how it has informed future decision making when it comes to creating possibilities for themselves in the field of their dreams.

The theme is:I Gave Myself the Gift of a Haven Retreat. So Now What?

We’ll be postings these essays written by Haven alums who will share their story twice a week through February, in hopes that you will take a brave stand for whatever it is that you dream about doing for yourself. If it’s a Haven retreat that you pine for, here is our 2015 schedule. I’d love to tell you more about the experience.

Here’s to a wondrous 2015! And may you grant yourself your wildest dreams!

February 25- March 1 (only a few spaces left) June 3-7 (filling fast) June 17-21 (filling fast)September 9-13 September 23-27 October 7-11 October 21-25 April 29- May 3- Haven joins the fabulous luxury guest ranch Ranch at Rock Creek for an activity-based retreat that will blow your mind!

Please enjoy this poem by Josina Manu Maltzman, which was inspired by my one day Haven Workshop at The Loft in Minneapolis this December. The prompt was: Why is Writing Dangerous? I chose this prompt because anything worth diving into head-first is a little, if not a lot, dangerous. That’s what makes it powerful. Consider your dreams, how you deem them “dangerous,” and choose to tell yourself a new story. Making them come true just might change your life! I am living proof of that.

Writing
is the space between cells that holds memories
atoms of information
the part of me that blends with you
the in-between that creates
the line
but also blurs it.

It is terrifying to write,
never knowing what may happen.
Words create worlds and we must follow them pulled to discover
what lies there.

Writing is both safe and safecracker
code breaker
myth weaver.

When you think you are alone but the words tell you:
You are not.

Writing is salve and salvation.
We need the words to heal,
mending collective trauma
where our humanity has been torn and ailed
for generations.

Trees need soil.
We need art.
There must be packed art around our roots
to push against
spread within
hold the water to us
and rest there,
waiting for us to sip and be nourished.

Writing is dangerous where there is power-over,
suffering-under.
It is dangerous to write truth into a scene that is otherwise void of it.

Writing is dangerous
the way jazz is dangerous.
The way meeting in town squares
under the watchful gaze
of the master
is dangerous.

Even if (because)
it looks like revelry.

Writing is forbidden sex and Love
re-imagined.

It is barriers destroyed and prison bars disappeared.

The undead coming alive
their voices rising together.

Words are
the testament of where we came from
proof of our pasts
claiming our futures.
On the page history
is told with our own words,
our lives
at once
have value.

Writing dangerously feeds hunger
when we are supposed to be starving.
Edwidge Danticat says,
“Create dangerously,
for people who read dangerously.”
Because some people
are killed for their words
and to read them
is also
sure death.

Some stories must be shared by candlelight,
behind drawn shades,
because the truth of what is said
is dangerous
to power.

Writing must be dangerous.
How else do we reflect
truly
on the world we live in?
We must get dirty
fearlessly uncovering.

My friend and fellow seeker/Huffington Post Blogger Marina Illich and I like to untangle the hard stuff.We call it Five Minute Manna.This is what has our hearts and minds activated this holiday season:Re-defining Family

Find Your People by Marina Illich

Holiday time is family time. But what exactly do we mean by family? So many people live three times zones – or an ocean – away from their parents and siblings, turning travel “home” into a costly or time-sucking ordeal. Then there are the divorced parents left to create “family” plans on their own, while the kids spend their holidays with the ex. And elders? So many of them are repaired to an assisted living home far away, making it virtually impossible to get back to the ranch.

Meanwhile, those who do get back to the ranch often wonder why they traveled the distance. We all know the uncanny way that holidays resurface old resentments, reactivate buried fault lines, and turn festivities of cheer into an endurance test of patience and poise. Inside the dim welcome, one can almost hear singer/songwriter Damien Rice crooning those signature lines – “Why do you sing hallelujah, if it means nothing to you? Why do you sing with me at all?”

Too many of us suffer enough from the predations of modernity – the divorces, job losses and job insecurity. The kids’ over scheduled lives and “underperforming” scores. The long commutes and dusty dreams. The loss of friendship and the loss of self. We don’t need the added pressure of enduring the holidays.

So what’s the alternative? I suggest it’s time to update our idea of family. Let’s dispense with the imperatives to feel whole and happy inside a story of “family” that leaves us frail or frazzled. Let’s dislodge our commitments to stoicism and endurance that leave us walled inside towers of loneliness. And let’s disband our loyalty to conflicting demands that run us ragged when what we simply want is…to be received exactly as we are.

Instead, let’s find our people. Let’s find those like-minded individuals who turn up in odd corners of our lives, who share some or none of our biography, who perhaps celebrate with fish when we celebrate with ham, or intone silent prayers when we devote ourselves to tracking the market or reading the Times. People who – for whatever logical or improbable reason – see, hear and feel our pulse with the gravity and gratitude that has us know we are at home. Let’s find those people and make those peoplethe family we arrive to in our stillness and frenzy, our hope and harry. And let’s make the gathering of that familythe ritual we behold – at whatever time of the year – to signal the holidays are here.

Let’s make thatfamily – geographically dispersed and culturally-spackled though it may be – the home inside which we eschew all the should’s and must’s we internalized along the way so that we can discover what we really are all about.

And let’s do all of this precisely so that when we do go back to our family with its far-flung network of third cousins, step-sisters, and in-laws, we behold them, once and for all – without indictment – exactly as they are.

Then, perhaps, we will find that whatever the season and whatever our destination, we are surrounded always and only by family – those relatives, friends, mentors, students, strangers and perhaps even adversaries – whom we recognize long, like us, for one simple thing: to be held and welcomed into our home exactly as they are.

A Family of Oneby Laura Munson

It’s the holidays, and no matter what’s in that wisdom quiver of ours…things are likely fraught.Why is that?Well, once-upon-a-time, we believed in something that someone told us, or preached to us, or wrote about, or filmed about, or photographed… on the meaning of family.And we bought it.And there’s a good chance that “family” looks very different to us now.There’s an even better chance, that with that difference, we find pain, disappointment, and even shame.Especially during the holiday season.

I come from a long line of documentarians.My mother lovingly made photo albums and home-movies, featuring every first day of school, play, dance, graduation, in addition to the annual Christmas card—all of us posed just-so, sent out to hundreds of people as proof that we were a family.A solid family.I loved all of it, especially our Christmas card, gazing at the ones we received from other families—a community, of sorts, to tout and hold dear.It gave me an intense sense of belonging.

So, as an adult, I took the photo-album-video-Christmas-card-baton, and raced to the finish every year with a family Best of book.If the house was burning down, that’s what I would take—the Best of books.

It takes me hours to make these books, reveling in what we’ve created in the last year.Making sure I have that perfect photo of every baseball and soccer game, every award ceremony and orchestra concert, every pinnacle moment, as, yes, proof of my amazing family, but also as proof of my motherhood.And on Christmas morning, I love sitting with my family and flipping through its pages, ooing and ahhing over the past year’s achievements, high points, adventures, folly.

A few years ago, my family-of-four turned into a family-of-three.My husband and I needed to end our marriage.It was sad and shocking and deeply disorienting.People told me that we were “still a family—just different.A modern family.”But I didn’t sign up for a “modern family.”I signed up for a family with a mother and father as a united force.It rocked me to the core.

I’m often asked if we’re okay, especially if the kids are okay.I’m not sure what okay means.We’re still feeling joy, inspiration, pride.We’re still on adventures.We’re still having pinnacle photo-worthy moments.But during the holidays, in these post-divorce years, it’s all so difficult.My gut says, Go slowly, keep it gentle, tuck in with your little family-of-three.Time to re-boot your whole orientation of family.So:No Christmas card.No Christmas party with the half-mile of luminaria and the carols around the piano.And no Best of book.Instead, I’ve focused on creating magic with my children, cozy around the fire, playing games, eating soup, pressure off.This is living time, not documenting time.

But on those dreaded days when I can’t actively practice my motherhood, or “family-hood”—when my children are with their father and not in the other room, and I am alone….my productive (Best of) mind kicks in, almost breathless: Go to a soup kitchen, visit a nursing home, find friends who are alone too– create a new tribe of “family.”That’s usually the way I fly—carry on, hope-springs-eternal.But for now, I’m listening to my gut instead, because I know that my new concept of family needs to find itself out of flow, not fear…and the truth is: I’m very very afraid of who I am alone.I can reason my way around this with great aplomb, but reason doesn’t help.If I am going to move forward in a truly authentic way, I need to find refuge in myself.And those alone Christmas moments are a good place to cut my teeth.

My gut says, Become your own family. Learn to take joy in the things your hands touch and deem holy, even if there’s no one there to witness it.Smell the paper-whites in the window and have it be enough that it’s for your nose only.Light the expensive candle and feel grateful for the way it focuses your gaze, fills the room with the scent of amber.Put on special clothes and don’t care if you’re photographed in them or witnessed at all.I trust my gut.I have to find the light in my own eyes, alone.I have to believe, once and for all, that I am okay, alone.It all begins there.And perhaps ends there too.

So tonight, alone, in a cashmere robe, candle lit, I created a Best of book of these post-divorce years.And something magical and Christmas-kissed happened.Scrolling through my files of photos, I didn’t look for achievements and winning moments. I looked for light in my children’s eyes, and mine too.I looked for sacred.If I saw it in a baseball championship or an Honor’s Society handshake, then I chose that photo.But only if there was light in those eyes I love so much.Including my own.

Which means that as we leaf through this book Christmas morning, on top of all of my children’s radiant moments, there will be photos of me leading my Haven Writing Retreats, riding my horse, growing a life that is outside of the family I’ve fostered, and perhaps…in-so-doing, finding new “family.”Maybe we can’t really move on…until I do.Alone.Maybe the definition of family is really a radical acceptance of self. And once we accept that, both my mind and my gut tell me, we will find our family community thriving, even if it looks entirely different than we ever thought it would.

Marina Illich, Ph.D. is a Bay Area-based executive coach and leadership consultant and the co-founder and principal at Broad Ventures Leadership.With a doctorate in Buddhist Studies, she spent five years in Asia studying Tibetan Buddhist practices for developing self-awareness, focus and resilience. She was recently appointed to the California Commission on the Status of Women and Girls by Gov. Jerry Brown. Marina can be contacted at: marina.illich@gmail.com

Laura Munson is a New York Times best-selling author and founder of the critically acclaimed Haven Writing retreats.She lives in Montana with her family of three (and one!).

This is for all the brave people who have joined me at Haven Retreats, and for those who have yet to come. The journey is everything.

There are a few poems that have kept me together in the last little while of my life as I’ve gone through the end of my marriage. This one is at the top of the list. Whatever end you might be coming to– the end of a relationship, the end of a job, the end of your family as you know it, empty nest…read this and know you are not alone. The video is a wonder too. yrs. Laura

The Journey

Above the mountains
the geese turn into
the light again

Painting their
black silhouettes
on an open sky.

Sometimes everything
has to be
inscribed across
the heavens

so you can find
the one line
already written
inside you.

Sometimes it takes
a great sky
to find that

first, bright
and indescribable
wedge of freedom
in your own heart.

Sometimes with
the bones of the black
sticks left when the fire
has gone out

someone has written
something new
in the ashes of your life.

You are not leaving.
Even as the light fades quickly now,
you are arriving.

As featured on the front page of Huffington Post 50Mindfulness is on the map. Time Magazine ran it on its cover last January: “The Mindful Revolution.” The Chicago Tribune headlined it: Use mindfulness to pull yourself out of a funk. An article in The New York Times urges us to use mindfulness and meditation as a powerful resource in healthy living. The Washington Post challenges us to be mindful at work. The Huffington Postoffers 5 mindful things to do every day. And Forbes touts mindfulness as a tool for Success. (And we all know what Forbes means when they talk about $success$.) It’s like a miracle or something. Mindfulness has been my dearest pursuit for as long as I can remember. I just didn’t know what word to attach to it. And maybe that was because I was fairly positive that mainstream society wouldn’t support it. I’ve never been very good at being called names. So in an effort to lessen the offense, I decided to call myself a Writer. And I moved to Montana where nobody seemed to care one way or another.

I have spent the last 25 years living in Montana, writing with all my mindful might. The natural world is the perfect stage to develop this practice, this prayer, this meditation, this way of life, and sometimes this way to life. I fiercely believe that creative self-expression on the page should be up there with diet and exercise as a therapeutic tool in the realm of preventative wellness…whether or not it adds up to a published work. Writing is the best way I know to process this beautiful and heartbreaking thing called life. And nature has been my best writing (mindfulness) teacher, calling me to retreat into my most sacred, quiet, deliberate place and find the wilderness of my words.

This time of year is a loyal reminder of the power of retreating into that still place. As summer winds down, my muse steps out of the huckleberry bushes and mountain lakes, stretches and notices the trajectory of things. Like dragonflies on screens. And Monarchs on Echinacea. And bats hanging in eaves. This is the time of year when I stop the flurry of my summer check list, and start to imagine the world white again. Dormant. Where I get still, the world sleeps, the woodstove teases ideas into words which turn into stories, and most important, morph into understanding.

Late summer’s corner into autumn is the perfect time to abide with the rhythms of the natural world. To pay attention to how it prepares slowly, methodically, mindfully, for that dormancy. Nothing is an accident. Every winged thing knows that everything counts, especially the ones who stay. Every hibernating creature is taking stock, making sure it has just the right kind of burrow with the right kind of egress. I follow their lead, preparing for a winter of words.

It’s the same every year. After months of ignoring the stacks in my house, the clutter in my closets, the flung grenades in my garage, I find myself hungry to clean it all out. I go through my pantry, making sure I have the basics: flour, sugar, clean Mason jars for the jam and canned tomatoes I’ll put up in a few weeks. I gather the gardening tools which have been too long leaning against fences, hose them down, return them to their home in the shed. And my office—I divide the things that I thought would matter from the things that do matter—trash the former, file the latter. In other words, I throw away a lot.

All of this is in anticipation of autumnal work which I have learned is essential to my winter work. Autumn is the time to prime the pump of my creative flow. Prime it so that it will flow through deep freeze. Autumn is the time for mindfulness at its best: It’s the time for retreat.

With the first hint of chill, I know that it’s time to retreat into that free zone which summer has procured. I sleep with my windows wide open to let the night air roll over me, hoping that it will filter into my dreams and fuel my muse. I keep my journal close to my bed, and I wake up early and open it, feeling my words sift through my mind’s fingers like the larch needles that will fall in early October. I let them come. I don’t think about how they might stack up. I don’t need them to add up to anything other than freedom. Permission. Hunger. Need. The work will come in winter. For now it’s time to stretch my mind, loosen what has lodged there in the summer months, let it flow.

Where do we get this free zone in life? Where is pure expression without scrutiny ever exercised in our lives? When I am in this corner season, I am less interested in the words, and more interested in where they come from. It’s like a portal place. An opening deep in the forest where I used to imagine the animals and fairies and teddy bears went in the nighttime to dance around bonfires. I believed in that place as a little girl. When I am finding and releasing words in this way, I am that little girl again. We all need to be that child. Children know that freedom is more than a high concept or a goal or that it comes with a cost. They know that it is a place inside us and they know they have to access it in order to do everything else that constitutes living.

That’s what writing is for me. That free zone. That place behind the words and stories. And that’s what I want other people to know. It’s not unlike the birds and chipmunks preparing for winter. It’s taking stock. It’s finding the basics. It’s procuring survival. It is a retreat into self. I believe in retreats as a vital way to tap into that creative self-expression on the page. I know I need them and I believe other people do too. So in the spirit of what I have been practicing for many years, mindful writing, I started Haven Retreats.

This fall, forty brave “grown-ups” will come to Montana to dig deeply into that wilderness that lives in them. Some will call themselves “writers.” Some will not. Some will have stories they want to write. Some will simply hope for words to come and to meet them on the page like new friends. It’s my job to lead them to their words by inspiring them to go places they would not likely go on their own. To facilitate an experience for them that they can walk away with and weave into their daily lives. When people do this sort of work, they become aware of who they are; that portal place in the woods where they dance around bon-fires, unabashed.

The act of going on a retreat is not woo woo. Leaving our daily lives behind and retreating into our primal rhythms, our purest flow, has been done since the beginning of time. The Native Americans went on Vision Quests. Jesus went to the desert. Buddha went to the Bo tree. Muhamad went to a cave. From those retreats came stories and words. Wise words that have lasted ages and profoundly informed how our civilization endures. Mindfulness, especially on a retreat, is ancient practice. It’s no small surprise then, that our country’s major publications consider this important “news.” With the stresses of our current world, people are understanding the value of what we have lost and what nature does intuitively. Mindfully. Deliberately. Creating ourselves over and over again. And that, indeed, is miraculous.

Testimonial: Haven was more than I expected. I knew I’d get so much out of it. I got that and more. My intention in attending Haven was to free myself as a writer. Wow did it loosen the chains! I’m working on a book and am experiencing all the attendant self-doubt and stymie, having never written one before. I’d never even shared my writing before Haven. I’ve never in fact admitted to myself I am a writer. Through Haven I have a confidence I’ve never had, and renewed motivation, not to mention some insightful technical and industry guidance. I can now say with assurance, I am a writer, no matter if I’m published or if I just write for enjoyment. Above all, the one-on-one time with Laura was priceless. To have someone of Laura’s accomplishment and talent read my work and offer feedback was a rare and invaluable opportunity. It is a ‘must-do’ if you attend Haven. From structure, to voice, to engaging the reader, Laura helped me find my way. The insight she offered informs and energizes my writing even after Haven. The class exercises helped free my writing and encouraged me to actually share it with others. What a fantastic way to help you get out of your own way. Those group exercises were a safe and free zone to just play, as were the evening readings. Not everyone at Haven considers his or herself a writer, so there was a wonderful diversity of work and commentary in our group sessions. The different intentions, perspectives, and life experiences made the time together that much more powerful. Everyone brought and left with something different. As Laura once said to me, “Haven meets you where you need to be met.” She couldn’t have been more right. I don’t know how long Laura will continue to offer Haven and especially the one-on-one time, but I count myself lucky to have benefited from her total generosity of spirit, talent, counsel and passion. Thank you Laura! Thank you Haven!– Heidi Knippa, Austin, TX

Now booking our upcoming 2014 Haven Writing Retreats and since they were named in the top five writing retreats in the country, they are filling fast! Give yourself this powerful gift…September 10-14 (ALMOST FULL)
September 24-28 (ALMOST FULL)
October 8-12
October 22-26

I dream of a cabin in the woods like the one in this photo. With a little creek running through. A vegetable garden. And a writing table. No internet. No phone. A fireplace and a screened porch with a comfy bed and lots of pillows. If you looked at my Montana home, you might think my life is already pretty much like that. And if I put my house on VRBO and wrote: “Writer’s Cabin in Montana,” I would probably get some renters who are taking a break from their lives to write in just this dream I dream.

This house however, currently holds too many responsibilities for that kind of quiet sanctuary. There are too many plugged-in things that demand my attention. Bottom line is: right now, my life doesn’t lend itself to that kind of exodus. I signed up for this and I wouldn’t wish away one drop of it. To everything there is a season, and in this season of my life I am writing three books on top of sending my daughter off to college and a summer of my son’s baseball Allstars rigor. Add to that the full time job of running my Haven Retreats. Enjoying a little summer in Montana on my horse and on the hiking trails would be nice too!

So rather than complain, or become resentful, or run myself ragged and end up flunking in every pursuit…I’ve developed a plan, and so far, it’s working. No matter what you’d do in a cabin in the woods alone for a month, see if any of this regime could work for you in your current daily schedule in the way of weaving dreams into realities. Some of my method might surprise you.

Laura’s Walden 2014

Day One:…and beyond…
1) Sleep in. And I mean late. Like til 10:00. You’ll likely wake up around 7:00, but challenge yourself to stay in bed for a few more hours in a sort of wakeful trance. Eyes closed. Mindful of your breathing. Letting the thoughts come in, but not land unless they feel natural and part of the pure flow that is your true nature. Breathe into them. It’s okay if you fall asleep. You’ll probably work with those thoughts in your dream state and wake up with a clean, whole, gumption of some sort. Take this gumption and write about it. I swear, this morning meditation is where all the good ideas are. (Of course you may have something called a “day job” or children…but at least take a day a week if at all possible, and give this morning meditation a whirl. Consider it an essential part of your writing practice.)
2) Still in bed…once those ideas come, and don’t force them, take in a deep breath, write the first line in your mind, (but not the second—trust that it will come and you’ll want to be at your writing desk when it does), grab your bathrobe, and go directly to your desk.
3) DO NOT CHECK YOUR EMAIL. Not for one itty bitty second. Or God forbid, Facebook. Do not poison what must be pure, and what you have just hatched by your morning meditation.
4) Write the first line.
5) Then go make a smoothie. I have a Nutra-bullet, and I love it. I have on hand: frozen organic fruit like mango, blueberries, peaches, pineapples, coconut milk, flax seeds, fresh baby greens, and a banana. The banana makes it. It’s a green drink that tastes like heaven. Keep that one line working in you as you make your smoothie. I timed myself this morning: it took six minutes. No good idea will disappear in six minutes. You absolutely must nourish yourself.
6) With smoothie in hand, (and maybe tea or coffee as well), go back to your desk. Then give yourself two hours. At least. Two hours at your desk, writing. I repeat…do NOT go on the internet. Not for one nano-second. Even to research something for whatever it is you are writing. You do not want to end up buying boots when you are supposed to be working that meditation-hatched gumption into form!
7) Noon-ish. Now take a break. Make lunch. Sit somewhere and let go of the thoughts. Notice the world around you. Sit outside if you can. Watch birds. If your head is busy, start counting the birds you see to keep the thoughts from taking over. I’ve counted a lot of birds. Amazing what you notice when you break life down to winged things.
8) Now take a walk. This is the best way to let everything you have experienced today work through you. Something always happens when I take a walk. Allow something to happen. Maybe you come up with a new idea. Maybe you decide that what you wrote this morning is really just a warm up for something else that is more white hot inside you.
9) On your walk, if you really get cooking, try this: Interview yourself, as if you are on a national morning show like the Today Show. Ask yourself driving questions about the thing you wrote this morning. Things like: “What is your piece about?” “What’s at stake for your characters?” “What made you want to write it?” “What’s in it for the reader?” Answer your questions using honed responses like you’d hear on TV. These are your talking points. Once you get them, go home as fast as you can and write them down. Or, in anticipation of this, bring along a notebook or a pad of paper. I don’t like to do that because it puts pressure on what could just be a perfectly good walk that doesn’t need to get all white hot. More of a processing walk. But mine usually run white hot. (Dirty secret: I have been interviewing myself for the Today Show since I was a little girl. That means I’ve been interviewed by Jane Pauley hundreds of times!)
10) Now return to what you wrote and read through it keeping those talking points in mind. They will be your guide in the progression of this piece, wherever it may go.
11) Or maybe you nailed it in two hours this morning and it’s ready to put on your blog, or pitch to a magazine or newspaper. But if you’re like 99.9% of the rest of us writers, you likely have more work to do. And that’s good news. Because you can control the work and just about nothing else about the writing life. With the exception of the last 10 ablutions.NOW…plug in, do your laundry, pay your bills, go to the grocery store…Bonus ablutions:
12) If you want to write more and you have the time, go for it! But set yourself up for completion by starting small with those two pure hours.
13) Print out what you wrote at the end of the day, draw a bath, and read it out loud to yourself with a good pen. Mark it up.
14) Start the next day the same way, only now you can meditate on the piece you started and take it further.
15) Begin by plugging in your edits from the night before and you…are…IN!
16) Have fun! In the words of Walter Wellesley “Red” Smith, “Writing is easy. You just open a vein and bleed.” Bleeding, then, can have a method to its madness.

I learned to garden not as a lady of leisure, but as a writer who needed a source of income and who knew that it had to be in the realm of creative self-expression lest it suck the muse dry. So I worked at a flower shop in Harvard Sq., and later at a nursery in Seattle, and after that, at a landscaping operation. I learned a lot along the way, and little by little I began to play with my own garden dreams. I’d bowed at the altar of my childhood favorite illustrator, Tasha Tudor, in deeply spiritual groans over her lush tangle of flowers and barefoot ruddy-faced children, dogs and cats– a peaceable kingdom that I longed to one day create. I wanted to be this woman, so self-sufficient and Yankee, walking barefoot in her garden, pausing only for the rigors of afternoon tea and a sensible nap. I wanted to set up a writing table the way she did an easel, and use it all to inspire worlds from this small postage stamp of my creation in the physical world.

I planted small perennial gardens wherever I lived, even in rentals. Suffice it to say that there are a lot of perennial beds across the country, and I hope that they are still alive and well. Perennials are both good friends and traitors that way. The second I bought my first home, I planned out the garden, pouring through all the Tasha Tudor books I could find about her garden, and locked in on my vision: a cottage garden, dripping in structure that would over the years, take care of itself.
Honeysuckle would grow over grapevines, clematis would vine through ragosa roses barbed to antique metal trellices. There would be show after show, each star introducing the next from narcissus, to tulips, to forget-me-nots, to allium, to ladies mantle, to lupine, to poppies, to peonies, to roses, to delphinium, to mallow, to rudbeckia, to monarda, and the final autumn show stoppers– sunflowers, aster, sedum, done. And so much inbetween. It would be a fine mess of old friends that would return every year, and I would welcome them as such, praying away hail for the easily bruised poppies, high winds for the hollow-stalked delphinium, and praying for ants for the peonies.

We had little to choose from at our rural Montana nurseries in the way of perennials, and the catalogues were a let down– the bare root stubs that showed up in the mail nothing like what they promised in profusion on their pages that taunted you mid-February. So whenever I travelled, be it by car, train, or airplane, I would always bring home roots from friends’ gardens, wrapped in wet newspaper, and stored in plastic bags. To this day, old friends who have passed on, are still alive in my garden, reminding me of the power of roots. The power of vision. The power of creating your own postage stamp of perennial friends who for the most part, live, even through the most brutal winter.

My garden has been a room in our home, inspiring mudpies, bedside bud vases, Mother’s Day bouquets, teacher appreciation gifts, strawberry jam. No matter what, I try to have something from the garden in the house. Because it helps. In their exquisite and tender elegance, flowers remind us that we are all root, stalk and petal. And that we all bloom, fade, and grow again. Unless it’s time to move on like my honeysuckles decided this winter after a 20 year run, sometimes even growing in winter!

There have been years when I was ambitious, building a dry stack wall by myself, or binding willow trellices to support the sweet peas, or digging up day lillies and soaking them so that I could release them from the grass that bound their roots, divide them and replant. And years when I didn’t have the time or the back power to add even one bulb in the fall, or pull weeds in the spring, and there was one year when I didn’t have the energy to water them at all. Still, for 20 years, these friends have grown loyally and religiously. The garden then, is the outward and visible sign of my inward invisible truth.

I can never remember if the word “commencement” means beginning or ending. My knee jerk reaction is to think that it means ending, though my writer’s mind quickly corrects it.

That’s probably because graduation ceremonies are called Commencement, and I think of graduation day as an ending– leaving the known behind: a good reputation, dear friends at a stone’s throw, families whose refrigerators and bikes and kitchen tables are yours for the sharing… the dismantling of decorated walls soon to betray you for guests, or someone else with new photo collages, new tapestries, new blue ribbons. I have never been good at leaving the familiar, and I usually mark it with a little hidden graffiti—Laura Munson lived here, and the dates.

But it’s not my turn this upcoming Commencement. It’s my daughter’s. Now it’s she who is dismantling her room, coming down to the end of her check list, five more days of school to go, graduation invitations in the mail, college deposit in, orientation dates in stone. There is a new timber in her voice; something dire. “Mom, can you do something with my Breyer horse collection?”

“Can’t you just leave them on your shelf?” I ask, vignettes reeling by of mock horse races on the lawn and barnyard feedings with tiny plastic apples, and that one coveted palomino paint that became real one Christmas.

“I need room for my stuff.”

“What stuff?”

And then I realize that the stuff that has been strewn all over her room for the last four years of high school actually could have had a home in her bookshelves if we’d been more able (or willing) to pack up her plastic horse collection. I’m not sure whose job this is. Please Lord, not mine.

I look into her eyes. And I see…it’s my job. Some things are just too hard.

Suddenly, I feel a desperate need to give advice in fast forward. “Have I taught you how to make hospital corners? And to never leave a wet towel on a bed? Or leave a glass directly on wood?”

“I know. Respect the wood. You’ve told me.” She’s tolerating my Mom-ness much more than usual lately. She’s in the bittersweet of Commencement while I am bursting into tears in pathetic public places, like at the bank drive thru, catching myself in the video screen looking miserable. Will her roommate know that when she needs a hug but is too shy to ask, she makes tea? Will she know that she likes to sing in harmony and that all those eye-ball rolls don’t really mean anything? Will she know that she acts street-tough sometimes, but is deeply sensitive and if she’s playing the ukulele along with Jack Johnson, something pretty rough probably happened at school that day?

“Mom, why are you crying?” she says, bringing me back to the grim task of packing up her happy childhood.

“I’m sorry. I’m just going to miss you.”

Last week was when it really hit. I was doing laundry and I heard from her room in that new dire timber, “How do stamps work?”

“Stamps? Like postage stamps?”

“Yeah.” This from a 4.0 student.

I went into her room. She was sitting on her bed addressing graduation party invitations. “Really? You can program a computer, but you don’t know how stamps work???”

“My generation doesn’t really use them.”

I was sure she was playing a joke on me. Stamps? But she wasn’t. She really had no clue that you use the same stamp for a local letter that you do for one that goes all the way to New York City.

Geez– what other glaring omissions have there been in my mothering? I’ve tried so hard to fill in every blank, taking every single second possible as a teaching moment. “Maybe I should write you a survival handbook for college and beyond. Would that be helpful?”

“I know all the basic stuff. But yeah…maybe the extra stuff.”

I wracked my brain, taking inventory. The extra stuff. If stamps are “extra” this could get ugly! I decided to do it room by room, compartmentalizing life in cross-section, like the dollhouse we spent hours decorating and playing in.

Kitchen:I started with How to boil water, tell if pasta is ready, smell a gas leak, turn off the water main…but suddenly it turned into a different kind of “extra.”
• If you’re having a bad day, leave the dishes. But do soak them, or you’ll really be in a bad mood when you get around to cleaning them.
• If you’re having a really bad day, don’t adhere to the utensil slots. Just chuck ‘em all in and let them fall where they may. Actually, if it’s a really bad day, just leave the dishes alone. They can wait.
• No matter what kind of mood you’re in, make yourself a nice meal, especially if you’re lonely.
• Always eat some fruit in the morning and some veggies at some point in the day. Keep bananas, carrots, apples, and potatoes around. They do the trick when you’re not feeling inspired.
• Keep a granola bar in your purse. (Tip: Use only small purses—lest you end up with a Mary Poppins carpet bag, coat rack and all. Read Nora Ephron’s essay on women’s purses.)
• Splurge on really good jam and really good bread.
• Always have a flower or a piece of greenery in a vase on your kitchen windowsill. It really helps.
• If you see evidence of mice, set traps immediately. This probably will not apply to 99% of the places you’ll live, (we live in Montana), so take it metaphorically: See s*** for what it is and get rid of the source before it gets out of control.
• If you use To Do lists, get rid of the word “goal” and replace it with “possibility.” You’ll be nicer to yourself that way.
• If you find yourself writing down something that you’ve already done on a To Do list, just so you can cross it off, you might want to stop making To Do lists.
• Allow yourself to grocery shop without a list, but not when you are hungry. You might surprise yourself by what ends up in your grocery cart—like rhubarb or radishes or kale or pistachios!
• Always smell fish before you buy it. If it smells like fish, it’s no good. Also, look into its eyes. They should be clear. This also applies to boyfriends.
• To cut goat cheese, use dental floss. (Unflavored! Duh. Don’t roll your eyes.)
• To make Deviled Eggs, put boiled eggs into cold water/ice bath. When cool, cut in half, shell ON, with sharp knife, then scoop egg out with spoon. Magic!
• Learn how to make homemade chicken broth. (Ask your mother)

Living room:
• Splurge on nice candles. Light them for yourself daily. Light the not-nice ones for guests. Not the other way around.
• Lie on the couch and do other things than watch TV. Like read a book or listen to classical music.
• Watch old movies. You know…back when people used stamps, and women dressed for travel. There’s a lot to learn from the “olden days.”
• Limit TV.
• Listen to NPR. Especially opera on NPR. Pretty much everything you need to know about life is in operas.
• Make sure to have musical instruments and keep them within eye-range so you’ll actually play them. Guitars and pianos welcome group jam sessions.
• Always have a drum somewhere for that person who claims they “aren’t musical.”
• Have board games and cards in a drawer or on a shelf. Play them. Especially Scrabble, backgammon, gin rummy, Farkle, and Scattagories.
• Have guide books and binoculars. It’s good to know your birds and flowers and other critters. Even in the city, there are hawks.

Bathroom:
• Have nice hand towels and nice soap in your powder room. Your guests should feel special.
• Use your powder room. You should feel special too!
• Always have an extra roll of toilet paper in each bathroom.
• And a plunger. (Replace plungers every-so-often, unless you are the type to wash and disinfect toilet plungers. Dirty secret: I’m not. That’s what the second flush is for.)
• Don’t forget to wash the toilet flusher handle when you wash your toilets. They are dearly overlooked. (Try not to think about that too much in hotel rooms.)
• Put nice art in your bathrooms. And magazines. You can learn a lot about a person from their bathroom.
• Supply room spray.

Bedroom:

Don’t be a slob. Pick up your clothes. If they’re not dirty, put them somewhere to wear again during the week, like in a hamper in your closet. NOT on a chair. And definitely NOT on your treadmill. Like your mother. Who then forgets she has a treadmill.
• Wash your sheets at least once a month.
• Splurge on nice sheets and feather pillows.
• If the person/people with whom you are sharing your room snore, make sure you have earplugs by your bed.
• Supply your nightstand with books that you want to read when you grow up: a book of poetry, a spiritual text of some sort, a classic novel, something on the best-seller list that is not written by a celebrity.
• If you eat breakfast in bed, use a tray. Crumbs are worse than bed-bugs in some cases, especially if you’ve listened to your mother and splurged on good bread.
• Eat breakfast in bed, but not lunch or dinner. That means you’re depressed.
• Do not let your dog sleep with you. Or your babies. They need a bed of their own, and so do you.
• Sleep in every-so-often. Like till eleven. This will get harder and harder the older you get.

Closet:
• You’re on your own on this one, but do get nice hangers if possible.
• Oh, and do accept that your “skinny” clothes are probably a thing of the past if you haven’t been able to fit into them for a few years…

Office:

Virginia Woolf was right—you need a room of your own, even it’s in an eave, or a closet under a stairway, or (if you’re lucky enough) a whole studio over your garage, or an unoccupied bedroom, or a renovated garden shed. Claim space for yourself!

• Don’t allow people to come and go without knocking.
• If you have children, always have an available chair in it for them. It’s important to have your own space, but it’s also important that they know that your work does not take away your motherhood.
• This one is really really important: Whatever it is that you do in that office, whether it’s a vocation or avocation, make sure it’s something you love. NOT something that you are necessarily good at. If you happen to be good at what you love, then that’s a bonus, but not a rule!

Outside:
• Have a communal outdoor space that feels like a room in your house, but isn’t exactly…like: A screened porch, fire escape, hammock, hot tub, front stoop, garden or terrace. It doesn’t have to be big. Just a place where you sit at least once every few days and dream a little.

A few extra extras:
• Write handwritten notes on nice stationary to people you love. That’s where the stamp comes in…
• Try not to kill bugs. If they’re inside, put a mason jar over them and take them outside. They do elegant things like lick the wax off the peony buds so that they can bloom. (I’m sure there’s a metaphor in there.) (Mice are a different story. If you’ve had one die in the walls, you’ll know what I mean.)
• Practice Yes and Possibility instead of No and Not Possible. Positive begets positive and negative begets negative. You don’t want the latter.
• Have fun, for crying out loud! Life is beautiful and heartbreaking any way you slice it so you might as well enjoy the ride!
• There is no such thing as cool.
• Judge not.
• Don’t mistake a full schedule for a full life. If you find yourself saying, “There’s never a dull moment,” you should probably make it a goal to have at least one “dull moment” every day.
• Take walks. (especially in the rain)
• Sing.
• Dance.
• Read poetry.
• Have dogs.
• Grow a garden.
• Travel.
• Create the sacred wherever you are.
• Be kind to old people and remember they know a lot more than you do. Ask them to tell you their stories.
• Know that there are saints everywhere. Look for them. They’re often where you least expect it.
• Call your mother. Texting is a challenge since she can never find her reading glasses. Plus, she likes to hear your voice. It reminds her of lying in bed with you when you were little, reading books, singing, praying, watching the moon, dreaming. And she loves you no matter what, which is hard to find.
DRINK WATER

You never really know where life will lead you, but if you live with pure intention and feed what you love with all your might, consistently and honestly…you might find yourself in places you’d never dreamed you’d go.

That happened to me in 2009 when I published the essay version of a memoir I’d written in the New York Times Modern Love column.The entry point was a marital crisis, but the book and the essay were not really about marriage.They were about being responsible for your own well-being no matter what’s going on in your life.They were about focusing on what you can control and letting go of the rest.And they were about powerfully choosing to not play emotional victim to the things that others say and do to you.

The book (This Is Not The Story You Think It Is) became a New York Times and international best-seller, and that essay went viral.Today, five years later, the essay is having a resurgence all over the internet and in The Week magazine where thousands of people have made comments, and over 200,000 people have shared it.That number is increasing by thousands every hour.(At this moment of writing, it’s at 214K.When I finish this post, if it is going the direction it’s been going, we could be at 22K, and I write fast!)It has been the top read article for days on The Week, sparking blog posts and ribald conversation on social media platforms from Facebook to Twitter and beyond.

Normally, I don’t follow this sort of stuff.I’m a writer and a mother and those things take up most of my time.I’ve learned that media often manipulates the meaning of my message and unfortunately a lot of the press I’ve gotten spins my essay/book to make it about how a woman saves her marriage.But it’s not about that.It’s about saving yourself.Turns out, people aren’t easily open to that message.People are used to playing emotional victim, and society re-enforces that.I see things another way, and when you offer new solutions, people oftentimes not only don’t want to hear them, they go on attack mode.I don’t have much room for that.I wrote that essay and that book to help myself process a difficult time in my life, and I wrote it to help others do the same.It has helped people all over the world and when I wonder whatever possessed me to be the main character in a book (I normally write fiction), I take heart in the knowledge that I have been true to my author’s statement:I write to shine a light on a dim or otherwise pitch black corner to provide relief for myself and others.If I have helped one person out there, then it’s all worth it.And I’ve heard from thousands of people who tell me my writing has done just that.

I walked a line of integrity throughout the whole experience of book promotion, not exposing my family outside of their comfort zone, not naming names, and turning down major media when my gut told me that it wasn’t right.And I mean MAJOR media.My message never has been about staying in a relationship.It’s about taking care of yourself and stepping outside of emotional suffering to do so.Moment by moment.Thought by thought.Breath by breath.Stepping into the most powerful question I know and that’s:What can I create?You don’t have to suffer, even under fierce rejection.Even when your spouse says, “I don’t love you anymore.”I’m here to tell you—this is the exact time to find the greatest emotional freedom of your life!You don’t have to take that personally!Nor do you have to take “You’re fired” personally.Or “You’re a jerk” or “You didn’t win the prize.”These are just words.I’m not always good at it, but it’s a practice I’m dedicated to because it works.It’s truth.I own what there is to own, set boundaries for myself, and mind my own business.It’s actually easy once we gain the self-awareness that it’s possible to choose our own happiness no matter what’s going on in our lives. And that usually begins with getting in touch with our own self-talk.Most of us speak to ourselves ten times worse than we’d speak to our enemies!

That’s new news to a lot of people and so now I find myself in the Wellness realm, speaking about the subject of non-suffering through self-awareness and creative self-expression at conferences and at my Haven Retreats, and I’m happily working on three books that have nothing to do with marriage.I have moved on from that time in my life, and while the end of the essay and the book leave my marriage in a place of healing, that marriage needed to end, and it did. Again, it was never about staying together.It was about taking care of yourself in a time when society says that you should suffer greatly, fight, splay yourself supplicant.I refused to do that.I felt that it was his crisis, and my job was to focus on what I could control and let go of the rest, which included the outcome of my marriage.I gave myself a stopping point.And eventually we stopped.And now we are divorced.Amicably.We are on to new chapters.All the players are thriving.And I’ve been given the opportunity to re-live the messages in my book/essay from a new angle.They still apply and they are still lifelines.And I can say that I know, without a doubt, that happiness is within.I’ll leave it at that.

But in the light of this break-neck resurgence of that small essay I wrote what seems a lifetime ago, I am moved to respond to a few things that might help you wherever you are in your lives—in a crisis, post-crisis, free zone.With the recent inundation of intimate, bleeding emails these last few days, for the most part about a painful marriage…thanking me for my essay on The Week, which indeed provided relief for people, and perhaps a new way of looking at life…I am moved to investigate this phenomena of the collective We.

We are in pain.

We are looking for hope.

We are looking for empowering messages.

We are looking for these things from every-day people.

We want to know that We are not alone.

We want to re-invent our relationship with pain.

We want to know that to fight is not always the best way to win.

We want to know that the only real winning is in our ability to step outside of suffering and into emotional freedom.

We want to know that we can powerfully choose our emotions.

We want to know that no one can really make us mad or sad or feel guilty.Or even happy.

We want to know that life is daily and that we don’t have to go to the top of the mountain to find enlightenment.It’s right where we stand.Even at our kitchen sink.

We want to feel connected to our loved ones, but sometimes the best way to connect is by stepping out of their way.

We have forgotten the power of deep breathing.A long walk.Candlelight.A hot bath. A singular flower in a vase on our nightstand.

We have forgotten that pain can be a terrific guide when we breathe into the groundlessness of it.

We have forgotten that life is about endless possibility.And endless Yes.And THAT’S where the real power lives.

Writing helps.I have used my writing to process this beautiful and heartbreaking thing called life since I was a child.I did it in my published memoir and essay so many people have read, are re-reading, orreading for the first time and sharing with their loved ones.

It’s for precisely this reason that I started Haven Retreats which were recently listed in the top five in the country!Now I help others dig deeper into their creative self-expression on the page.I invite you to write your way through the difficult times in your life.You never know what might happen…

One hour later.219K shares.We are 5,000 hungry for these messages and counting…

Note: As of June 4, 2014 there are now over 300,000 shares at The Week so it looks like we’re in this together!